Dennis Patrick Slattery & Lionel Corbett, Eds.

Depth Psychology

Meditations in the Field

Developed in the spirit of C.G. Jung, and extended by the work of James Hillman, Depth Psychology: Meditations in the Field grows directly from the soil of the Romantic Movement of the 19th century, itself a rebellion against the legacy of Enlightenment fundamentalism, which emphasized the literal reality of the world, and feasted on Measurement and the quantification of all knowledge.

These essays build on the observation outlined by Jung in his provocative introduction to The Spirit in Man, Art, and Literature:

"Since it is a characteristic of the psyche not only to be the source of all productivity but, more especially, to express itself in all the activities and achievements of the human mind, we can nowhere grasp the nature of the psyche per se but can meet it only in its various manifestations". (p 85)

We believe the essays in this volume honor the spirit of Jung’s regard for the psyche’s diverse expressions.

(Pacifica Institute)

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Chapter 17: Prisoners of our Imagination – The Boys Inside the American Gulag by Aaron Kipnis

Contributors

Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D., founding president and core faculty member of Pacifica Graduate Institute, is a clinical psychologist whose research centers on a psychodynamic process of “tending the living image,” particularly in the context of dreamwork. His approach to the dream is called DreamTending. Dr. Aizenstat brought the insights of depth psychology and dreamwork to the Earth Charter International Workshop, where he was a participant-observer in this United Nations project. Still actively involved in the Earth Charter Project, Dr. Aizenstat has conducted dreamwork seminars for more than 25 years throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Charles Asher, D.Min. is Provost of Pacifica Graduate Institute, a core faculty member, Jungian Analyst, and an Oblate of the Order of St. Benedict, Camaldolese, New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, California. He is the author of The Contemplative Self and Soundings as well as other articles on psychology and religion.

Lionel Corbett, M.D., is a British-trained psychiatrist and Jungian analyst and core faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is the author of The Religious Function of the Psyche. He is also director of the continuing education program, Psyche and the Sacred.

Hendrika de Vries M.T.S., M.F.T., teaches in the Mythological Studies program of Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her background is in theology, mythology, and Jungian depth-psychology. She has led workshops and seminars nationally using mythic imagination, dreams, and archetypal mind-body awareness to facilitate psychospiritual development. Hendrika is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice in Santa Barbara.

Christine Downing, Ph.D., for 20 years chair of the Religious Studies Department at San Diego State University, has been associated with Pacifica since before it WAS Pacifica and before its move to our beautiful Carpinteria campus, but it is only since the establishment of the Mythological Studies program that it has become the center of her academic life. Indeed, her teaching at Pacifica is so fulfilling and so challenging that although she had earlier published nine books (including The Goddess, Myths and Mysteries of Same-Sex Love, and Gods in Our Midst), she hasn’t managed to complete the Holocaust memoir she began five years ago.

James Hillman, Ph.D., renowned author and psychoanalyst, is a leading scholar of Jungian and Archetypal Psychology. An innovative clinician and an inspiring teacher, Dr. Hillman has led the movement in psychology which aims to broaden the focus of therapy to include in its care disorders of the world soul. Having retired from analytical practice after 40 years, Dr. Hillman now devotes his critical attention to concerns of contemporary culture. Author of Bestsellers, The Soul’s Code: In Search of Character & Calling and recently The Force of Character and the Lasting Life.

Aaron Kipnis, Ph.D., is president of the Fatherhood Coalition, a nonprofit organization that supports positive male involvement in family planning, parenting, relationships, and community. He is author of Angry Young Men; Knights Without Armor; co-author of What Women and Men Really Want; and contributor to many anthologies and journals. Dr. Kipnis is on the core faculty of Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is also a regular speaker and consultant on male psychology and gender issues to professional organizations, governmental agencies, universities, national media, treatment facilities, and training institutes. Please visit www.malepsych.com for more information and an e-mail link to the author.

Patrick Mahaffey, Ph.D., is the Chair of the Mythological Studies Program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. He is a religious studies scholar who teaches courses on Asian religious traditions and hermeneutical research methods. He has published essays on religious pluralism, myth in the context of postmodernity, and on religion in American culture.

Helene Shulman Lorenz, Ph.D., is currently the Academic Dean and a Core Faculty Member at Pacifica Graduate Institute. She has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from Tulane University in New Orleans, LA and a Diploma in Analytical Psychology from the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich. She is the author of Living at the Edge of Chaos: Complex Systems in Psyche and Culture. Active for many years in cultural movements for social justice and development in Latin America and the United States, she has written a number of articles, and is at work on a book, about individuation, decolonization, and community.

David L. Miller, Ph.D., is the Watson-Ledden Professor of Religion at Syracuse University and a core faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute. He also teaches at the Jung Institute in Zurich and was a member of the Eranos Circle in Switzerland from 1975 until 1988. Miller is the author of five books and over sixty articles and book chapters.

Maureen Murdock, M.A., M.F.T., is a core faculty member of Pacifica Graduate Institute and the author of The Heroine’s Journey;Fathers’ Daughters: Transforming the Father-Daughter Relationship; and Spinning Inward: Using Guided Imagery with Children. Her books have been translated into French, Dutch, German, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Hebrew, Portuguese and Spanish. Murdock is writing a book on the mythic dimension of memoir and teaches creative writing in the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

Avedis Panajian, Ph.D., is a faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and training analyst at the Psychoanalytic Center of California, California Graduate Institute, and Newport Psychiatric Institute. He is a Diplomate in Clinical Psychology of the American Board of Professional Psychology. Dr. Panajian is a recipient of the Distinguished Educator Award from the California Psychological Association and is currently in private practice in Beverly Hills.

Ginette Paris, Ph.D., is a psychologist and the author of books on Greek and Roman mythology, among which are Pagan Meditations, Pagan Grace, and Mythology: A CD-ROM Encyclopedia of Greek and Roman Mythology. She is a core faculty member at Pacifica Graduate Institute and the Research Coordinator for Mythological Studies Program.

Robert D. Romanyshyn, Ph.D., is an author, teacher, and international lecturer. In addition to three books, he has published more than fifty articles in journals and edited volumes. He has been described as a master storyteller with a gift for expressing the insights of the soul with the voice of a poet. His primary interest lies in being a spokesperson for the marginalized and neglected values of the soul, including its longing for beauty, its desire for a sense of the sacred, and its hunger to remember its instinctual, vegetative, and mineral roots in nature. Robert lives with his wife, Veronica, and two of their four children in Summerland, California.

Dianne Skafte, Ph.D., lectures widely on oracular traditions in ancient and modern cultures. A past Academic Vice President of Pacifica Graduate Institute, she has taught in the field of depth psychology for over a decade. Her book, When Oracles Speak, has been translated into three languages.

Dennis Patrick Slattery, Ph.D., has been teaching for 31 years, including grade school, high school, junior college and university levels. He has written over 160 articles, poems and reviews. He is the author of The Idiot: Dostoevsky’s Fantastic Prince and The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings ofFlesh. His interests are in the area of psyche, mythopoetics, the mimetic impulse of the psyche and body woundedness. He also enjoys writing for newspapers and magazines on current topics seen through a mythological lens. He is married and has two sons.

Mary Watkins, Ph.D., is coordinator of community & ecological fieldwork and research for Pacifica’s Depth Psychology Doctoral Program. She has chaired both Master’s Program in Counseling Psychology and the Depth Psychology Doctoral Program. She is the author of Waking Dreams, Invisible Guests: The Development of Imaginal Dialogues, co-author of Talking With Young Children About Adoption, and co-editor of Psychology and the Promotion of Peace.

As Pacifica continues to develop and more people are drawn to our programs, our learning community faces the challenge of keeping a place for soul in the midst of success and growth. In the daily activities on campus, we are coming to appreciate the custodial nature of this work. A thing of beauty calls for a measure of protection. We are stewards of a vision, an ideal which has selected us. Our purpose is to bring the creative depths of the human psyche into relationship with the citizens, the institutions, and the forces of nature that make up the world. In so doing, we consciously acknowledge the social landscape of which we are a part. We are committed to contributing back into this world an awareness of the unfolding richness of the human psyche. As institutional, academic, and political challenges converge, it is vital to the Pacifica vision that we reflect on and embody a larger sense of the needs of the planet.